Tracking Your Money & Keeping Records

Understanding Cash Flow

Cash flow is the cash moving in and out of your restaurant or pub—day by day, week by week. Sales matter, but cash flow decides whether you can pay for beer deliveries, fresh produce, payroll, and the credit card fees that come with every service.

Think of your business like a keg line: money gets “pumped in” from dine-in, takeout, delivery, and bar tabs, then “runs out” through food, labor, rent, utilities, licensing, and debt payments. If the line keeps draining faster than it fills, you’ll feel it as soon as suppliers tighten terms or payroll day hits.

The Importance of Basic Records

For restaurants/pubs, basic records are your early-warning system. Good records help you answer simple questions fast:
- Are we actually profitable this week, or just busy?
- Did last week’s labor match the covers we served?
- Are we over-spending on food and inventory?
- Are cash deposits matching what Toast POS (or your POS) says we sold?

In practice, recordkeeping also protects you during tax season and audits because you’re not scrambling to rebuild a story from messy notes. The National Restaurant Association emphasizes operational systems, and this is one: if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.

Real-World Scenario (Typical Pub)

Say you run a pub with a busy Friday-to-Sunday pattern. You pull strong bar sales on weekend nights, but your cash is still tight on Mondays.

Here’s what often happens:
- You buy alcohol and fresh stock right after the weekend (when demand was high).
- You schedule new staff and overtime for service coverage.
- You pay a cleaner/vendor and get hit with a large credit card settlement.

If you only check your bank account once a month, you won’t understand why you feel cash-poor while sales are “high.” With proper records, you can see the timing: cash-in from POS deposits, cash-out from weekly supplier invoices, and any lag from payment processing.

The Bootstrapper’s Ledger (Restaurant/Pub Version)

You don’t need fancy accounting to start. Use a simple weekly ledger that ties your POS reality to your bank.

Each week, write down:
1) Cash in
- POS deposits (Toast POS, Square POS, etc.)
- Any cash drawer totals you reconcile daily
- Online orders paid out (platform payouts)

2) Cash out
- Payroll (including taxes and scheduled tip payouts)
- Supplier invoices (food, beer, spirits, coffee)
- Rent, utilities, insurance
- Loan payments / credit cards
- Any large one-off expenses (repairs, POS subscriptions, permits)

The goal: know your burn rate (how fast you spend cash) and your runway (how long you can operate before cash runs short). With restaurants, timing is everything—inventory buys often hit before the next cash deposit cycle.

Forecasting and Decision Making (The Week Ahead)

Forecasting isn’t a spreadsheet art project. It’s a practical planning tool.

Ask:
- Based on last 2–4 weeks of sales and your booking schedule, how much cash will you likely have in the next 14–30 days?
- When do supplier invoices land?
- Are you hiring for a seasonal event (sports playoffs, trivia nights, live music)?

Example: If your cash runway is short, you don’t stop selling. You change the plan:
- Hold off on non-essential menu changes until the next cycle
- Negotiate supplier terms
- Adjust scheduling to match average cover and expected bar volume
- Reduce waste by tracking high-loss items (especially proteins and premium alcohol)

Toast POS and industry resources commonly stress using real-time sales and cost data to run the floor. Use that same discipline for cash: cash-in from sales and cash-out from commitments.

Conclusion

In a restaurant or pub, you can look profitable on paper and still run out of cash due to timing, deposits, and weekly expenses. Track your cash flow with basic records, reconcile your POS deposits, and forecast so you can make staffing and purchasing decisions that keep you operating with confidence—before a bank balance forces your hand.